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New EPA Definition Bad For State

By U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton

It’s no secret that President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency has been one of the most aggressive in history. They have implemented countless regulations that have hurt Arkansans and our state economy. And they’re at it again, recently implementing new regulations changing the traditional navigable waters definition.

This new definition will alter the way the Environment Protection Agency regulates bodies of water. Specifically, it will provide the Environmental Protection Agency with the ability to regulate intermittent streams, culverts, and other such bodies of water.

Unfortunately, this new definition is bad news for the Natural State.

They provide the EPA with the power to dictate Arkansans’ planting schedule, how much manure or fertilizer a farmer can put on their fields, and even how often they can run a tractor.

That is why I’ve sponsored H.R. 3377, the Defense of Environment and Property Act. This legislation will protect Arkansas’s private landowners from the EPA’s regulatory overreach by restricting the navigable waters designation to the historical definition. It also clarifies that the “navigable waters” definition is only applicable to permanent bodies of water.

The Defense of Environment and Property Act takes an important step toward restoring power to the states by excluding rain streams from Federal jurisdiction, prohibiting Federal agents from entering private property without the express consent of the landowner, and requiring the government to pay double the value of the land to any landowner whose property value is diminished by a wetlands designation.

Arkansas has a long history of protecting our lands; Washington bureaucrats shouldn’t be telling us how to do a job we’ve been doing well for generations.

Rest assured, I will continue to fight back against the EPA’s regulatory overreach and support policies that protect Arkansas’s agriculture community.